Shakespeare the Psychologist?
I have found that most of the characters in William Shakespeare's plays seem to
be "mad", or mentally disturbed in some way. Shakespeare's characters display
psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, senility, psychosexual disorders,
and many more. Was this an early form of psychology or was he just relating to
his own personal experiences. In my paper, I will discuss some basic concepts
of psychology, and how I believe Shakespeare explored the world of psychology
through the individuals in his works. I will also diagnose some of his famous
characters from the plays “Hamlet” and “King Lear.”
Psychological Concepts have been around since practically the beginning of time.
Even Aristotle asked questions that would be classified as psychological in
today's era (Wade and Tarvis, pg. 5). So Shakespeare was not the first person to
use psychology but he may have been the first person to use a form of it in
plays for an audience to see. Psychology is defined as the discipline concerned
with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism's
physical state, mental state and external state (Wade and Tarvis, pg. 4). It is
evident in the plays that I have read that some of the characters in the plays
have psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, split-personality disorder,
Oedipus Complex, senility, and delusions.
Schizophrenia is defined as a psychotic disorder marked by positive symptoms
such as delusions, hallucinations, and incoherent speech; and negative symptoms
such as emotional flatness and loss of motivation (Wade and Tarvis pg. 485). A
person suffering from schizophrenia may have imaginary events happen to them or
have imaginary people in their lives. For example, a man suffering from
schizophrenia may believe he has a best friend named Joseph, when in fact there
is no best friend at all. This disorder can be treated with medication but
never cured. Another disorder showed in Shakespeare’s works is the
split-personality disorder. The Split-personality Disorder is defined as a
disorder marked by the appearance within one person of tow or more distinct
personalities, each with its own name and traits (Wade and Tarvis pg. 479). The
Oedipus Complex is another psychological disorder presented in
Shakespeare’s work and is defined as a conflict in which a child desires
the parent of the other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival (Wade and
Tarvis pg. 483). This is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud on of the fathers
of psychology. This concept is controversial but tests have been done to show
that this actually happens and can occur at any stage in life. Senility is
defined as of, relating to, exhibiting, or characteristic of old age; especially
exhibiting a loss of mental faculties associated with old age (Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, 2000). These are just a few of the basic psychological concepts
that are prevalent in the plays I will talk about.
The first play I am going to talk about is “Hamlet.” Hamlet is one
of Shakespeare's later tragedies, and also one of his most successful ones. The
main characters in this play are: King Hamlet, Hamlet, Queen Gertrude (Hamlet's
Mother), Claudius (Hamlet's Uncle-Father), Leartes (Claudius’ son) Ophelia
(Hamlet's Object of Affection), Polonius (Ophelia's Father), Horatio (Hamlet's
college friend), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hamlet's friends).
Hamlet is a young prince of Denmark, whose father passed away mysteriously.
Hamlet can't come to terms with the death of his father and becomes mentally
disturbed in the months after the death. Hamlet's Uncle Claudius marries
Hamlet's mother just two months after King Hamlet's death making the situation
worse on him. Hamlet doesn’t want to deal with this anymore and wants to
go back to college but his mother won't let him and he has no choice but to obey
her wishes.
His lover Ophelia tells her father Polonius about Hamlet's love for her and her
father warns her against Hamlet. After this scene, his friend Horatio then
comes and tells him that he has seen the ghost of his dead father and so at
night outside the castle, Hamlet goes to find the ghost. Sure enough, Hamlet
finds and speaks to the ghost of his father and finds out that Claudius has
murdered King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. King Hamlet wants revenge
for his murder and asks his son to murder Claudius. Ophelia then tells her
father about Hamlet's crazy ways and her father reports to the King and Queen
who have Hamlet's friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to watch over him so he
doesn't do anything crazy. Hamlet also arranges for a group of actors to
perform in a play that he hopes will make Claudius guilty about the murder of
Hamlet's real father.
In another scene, Hamlet yells at Ophelia, insulting women to her face,
basically ruining any chance of a further relationship with her. That night the
play that is supposed to make Claudius feel guilty about the crime he committed
takes place. This play titled “Mousetrap” does make Claudius feel
guilty and he confesses the murder while thinking he is alone. He is not in
fact alone, Hamlet overhears this and wants to kill him right then and there,
but decides if he kills him while praying he will go to Heaven and this is not
where Hamlet wants him to go.
Hamlet goes and tells his mother about what he hears and is now showing signs of
true madness, so she screams for help and Polonius who is hiding in the room
also screams for help. Hamlet thinks this is Claudius so he runs over to the
sheet he is hiding under and stabs him. When he sees it is Polonius, he
doesn’t show much sign of despair, which shows he has gone over the edge.
When hearing the news of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad and commits
suicide because she feels she has nobody left in her life.
In the final scene, Leartes challenges Hamlet to a duel. Claudius fills a cup
of wine with poison intending that Hamlet drink it but instead, Gertrude toasts
to Hamlet and drinks it. She then realizes she is poisoned and tells Hamlet
it’s a trick. Laertes and Hamlet then make amends and Laertes tells him
he stabbed him with a poisoned sword but he apologizes. Hamlet then makes King
Claudius drink the poisoned whine and then he dies. Hamlet names Leartes
successor to the throne.
In the play Hamlet, Prince Hamlet shows signs of a lot of different
psychological disorders. The first one is schizophrenia which is a psychotic
disorder marked by positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and
incoherent speech, and by negative symptoms such as emotional flatness and loss
of motivation. The reason I think he could suffer from this is that he is
possibly seeing hallucinations of his "ghost father", who in actuality isn't
really there. More than likely, the ghost is a figment of Hamlet's imagination
or a hallucination, and as for Horatio seeing a ghost; I have a theory of my
own. Often times, schizophrenic patients have imaginary friends that they think
are as real as can be even if you tell them they are not real. It is possible
that Hamlet made up Horatio and the other friends. Horatio could be Hamlet's
secret confident so Hamlet doesn't go crazy. These friends reminded me of a
movie I recently went to called A Beautiful Mind. In this movie, a very bright
professor tells his whole life and has lots of twists and turns but towards the
ending of the movie, you find out that his whole life has been made up in his
head because of schizophrenia. I think Shakespeare added Horatio and the other
friends just to confuse the readers into believing King Hamlet really came back
as a ghost, when in fact it was probably just delusions made up in
Hamlet’s mind. Another reason I think Hamlet is schizophrenic is because
of the emotional flatness he shows and how he has a loss of motivation. For
example, his relationship with Ophelia began to go downhill after his
father’s death. He completely throws her out of his life, and wants
nothing to do with her. He has no motivation to do anything but try to catch
Claudius in a lie.
Hamlet could also suffer from split-personality disorder, which is marked by the
appearance within one person of two or more distinct personalities, each with
its own name and/or traits. One example of this is the two ways he acts to his
mother. In Act One Scene Three when he is speaking to his mother about going
back to college and she says no, he states, “I shall in all my best obey
you, madam”. This shows that he respects her very much and would do
anything to please her. But then as soon as she leaves the room, Hamlet states,
“Frailty, thy name is women!” This is a quote from Act One Scene
Three in which he is saying that women are frail, and that his mother should be
strong and not give up on his father so easily. Hamlet says that his father was
good to her and she seems to have forgotten that. If he cared about her so much,
he wouldn’t have said that when she left the room, it almost seems as if
there are two different Hamlets. Another example from scene three follows:
Hamlet: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
Ophelia: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
Hamlet: You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.
Ophelia: I was the more deceived.
Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
(Hamlet, Act Three, Scene One)
This excerpt from Hamlet leads me to believe that Hamlet stated that he loved
Ophelia when he was under another personality. He seems to have no recollection
of loving her at all. When he tells her to go to a nunnery, that seems crazy in
itself. Often times, patients struggling with split-personality disorder
can’t remember being the other part of their personality so Hamlet
probably can’t even remember ever loving Ophelia.
One more psychological disorder I think Hamlet suffers from is Oedipus
Complex, which is when a conflict in which a child desires the parent of the
other sex and views the same-sex parent as a rival. The reason why I believe
this is because of the way he worships his mother. He seems so jealous of her,
but is this jealousy because he loves her and secretly desires her or because he
misses his father. I watched the movie Hamlet, with Mel Gibson in it and when
Hamlet and his mother would kiss, it wasn’t just a kiss. It was a kiss
you would give someone you want or desire. Another reason why I think that
Hamlet has Oedipus Complex is because Hamlet should have some hate for Claudius
his uncle for marrying his mother, but Hamlet also portrays signs of jealousy as
well. It’s possible that Hamlet has been burying his sexual desires for
his mother since infancy and now that his father is gone he had a chance, but
his uncle took it away so he is jealous. He seems like he is jealous of his
mother finding a new husband more than he is angry, he still talks to her and is
still kind to her but he detests his uncle for it. It seems to me that he
should be mad at both of them if he is going to be mad because it’s not
just his uncle, his mother should have some blame as well.
The next play that I am going to talk about is called King Lear. In the play,
the main characters are: King Lear, this three daughters Cordelia, Regan, and
Goneril, Gloucester and Kent (Earls), Gloucester’s bastard son Edmund and
Edgar, and the joker. King Lear is going to give his kingdom to the daughter
who loves him the most, so he asks them to express their love for him in words.
The first daughter Goneril has a big speech on why she loves her father so much
and so does the second daughter Regan. But the third daughter Cordelia tells
Lear that she loves him as a daughter, but is saving some love for her husband.
This angers Lear and Cordelia gets banished from the kingdom. When Kent steps
in to try to tell Lear that Cordelia is the daughter who loves him the most,
Kent gets banished also. The two people that care for Lear the most get
banished.
Lear goes to stay at Goneril’s castle and she wants nothing to do with him
and eventually kicks him out of the castle. He then tries to stay with Regan
but she doesn’t want him either. Meanwhile all Edmund wants is the
kingdom and he will do anything to get it. He even has an affair with both
sisters. Lear is homeless with no place to stay, and he only has the Fool with
him and a servant that he just met. The servant happens to be Kent in disguise.
In the end, Lear realizes that Cordelia was the one who loved him, but everyone
ends up dying with Edgar named the next king.
These are some of the psychological disorders that I think the characters
suffers from. Opposing views would be that I am looking into this topic way too
much and that Hamlet is just upset about his father’s death and looking
for ways to cope with it. Some say that nothing is actually mentally wrong with
Hamlet, that’s how anyone would act if a parent passed away. But there
was one opposing view that I found particulary interesting. J.M. Robertson and
Professor Stoll of the University of Minnesota agree that the problem lies in
the actual play itself and no in the character Hamlet. They say that too often,
people try to dissect the character Hamlet, when they should be dissecting the
actual play. Stoll states that there is definite failure on Shakespeare’s
part and he compared a line from Hamlet with a line from Romeo and Juliet as
follows:
Look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill,
Compared to Romeo and Juliet lines from Act V, sc. ii,
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep . . .
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them: had my desire;
Finger'd their packet
Stoll claims that the writing done in Hamlet was sloppy and the lines and scenes
were inconsistent, while in some of Shakespeare’s other work it was
perfect. This was just one of the opposing views that I found interesting.
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